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Originally Posted by ArtMonkDrillz
My thoughts exactly. I find it interesting that a 5 year old was self aware enough to know that he might get made fun of for wearing a girl's Halloween costume but he (with his mom's support) was still willing to go through with it. She also brings up a great point with the fact that it becomes socially acceptable for older kids and adults to cross dress in situations like Halloween.
IMO, just because a boy, especially a 5 year old, wants to wear a girl's costume it doesn't necessarily mean that he wants to cross dress for life or that he's gay.
I know it's not exactly the same, but when my little sister was a kid she was a huge tomboy and eventually joined my wrestling team and kicked ass every week. Later she kind of grew out of that phase and became a cheerleader; now she's a hair dresser and about the "girliest" person you could meet. At the same time, if she never "grew out of it" SFW.
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I totally agree about letting kids grow up to be themselves, and as a parent being totally accepting. In fact, I advocate accepting everyone no matter how different they are. But at the same time, people who are different absolutely have to understand that the world is full of jerks who will not accept them. They need to develop an ability to handle that, because as much as you want to preach acceptance, face it, not everybody will accept them.
I have a transgender cousin, born with lady parts but wired as a man. We call him "he" now, and as a family we've fully accepted it. But, when he came to his parents as a 16 year old and "came out", the first thing his parents did was explain that they love him no matter what. But he has to understand that not everybody's going to be OK with this. He's going to get made fun of, abused, heckled, and looked upon with disgust. He might even lose some friends who don't want to be associated with an uncool weirdo.
And he did face a really rough time in high school and the first year of college, got made fun of a lot. But because he had accepting family and some close friends, he had the confidence and self esteem to let the comments of the jerks just roll off his back.
If you're going to be different, it's totally fine. But be ready, because not everybody thinks so.